1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiper blade, which includes a fin that receives a head wind to limit lifting of the wiper blade from a surface of a glass at the time of driving a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, a wiper blade, which wipes a front glass (windshield glass) of a vehicle, has a lever assembly. The lever assembly includes a plurality of levers that are linked together in tournament style. Furthermore, a wiper strip, to which a backing plate is installed, is installed to the lever assembly. Such a wiper blade could be lifted away from a surface (a wiping surface) of the front glass by a head wind, which is applied to the wiper blade from a front side of the traveling vehicle. To address the above disadvantage, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-234353 discloses a wiper blade, which includes a fin member (a blade spoiler). The fin member has a slant surface for generating a resistive urging force upon receiving the head wind applied to the wiper blade from the front side of the traveling vehicle. The resistive urging force, which is generated by the fin member, urges the wiper blade against the surface of the front glass to limit the lifting of the wiper blade from the surface of the front glass.
However, in the case of the wiper blade recited in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-234353, the fin member is provided separately from the lever assembly and thus needs to be installed to the lever assembly. This requires additional work for installing the fin member to the lever assembly.
Alternatively, a fin, which functions in a manner similar to that of the above fin member, may be formed integrally in each lever of the lever assembly. However, a size of such a fin needs to be increased to achieve a sufficient urging force for urging the entire wiper blade against the surface of the front glass by receiving the head wind at the time of driving the vehicle. Furthermore, when the size of the fin is simply increased, the fin significantly protrudes in a transverse direction of the wiper blade, causing obstruction of the field of view of the driver on his/her front side during the operation of the wiper at the time of driving the vehicle.